DSpace Collection: Libraries, University of Michigan

Current Developments and Future Trends for the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 22:58:59 GMT

Title: Current Developments and Future Trends for the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting

Authors: Shreeves, Sarah L.; Habing, Thomas G.; Hagedorn, Kat; Young, Jeffrey A.

Abstract: The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) has been widely adopted since its initial release in 2001. Initially developed as a means to federate access to diverse e-print archives through metadata harvesting and aggregation, the protocol has demonstrated its potential usefulness to a broad range of communities. Two years out from the release of the stable production version of the protocol (2.0), there are many interesting developments within the OAI community. Communities of interest have begun to use the protocol to aggregate metadata relative to their needs. The development of a registry of OAI data providers with browsing and searching capabilities as well as accessibility to machine processing is helping to provide a scalable solution to the question of who is providing what via the OAI protocol. Work is progressing on the technical infrastructure for extending the OAI protocol beyond the traditional harvesting structure. However, serious challenges, particularly for service providers, still exist. This paper provides an overview of the current OAI environment and speculates on future directions for the protocol and OAI community.

Creating an Academic Hotbot: Final Report of the University of Michigan OAI Harvesting Project

Sun, 29 Dec 2002 22:58:59 GMT

Title: Creating an Academic Hotbot: Final Report of the University of Michigan OAI Harvesting Project

Authors: Wilkin, John; Hagedorn, Kat; Burek, Mike

Abstract: The University of Michigan OAI harvesting project, Creating an Academic Hotbot, concluded its work in December, 2002. The first phase involved identification of potential metadata sources and early exploration. The second phase of work involved installing and deploying the harvester software developed by the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign (UIUC), and testing and collaborating with UIUC on fixes to the software. With the stabilized software, OAI-enabled repositories from various sources were harvested. A formal end-user Web interface for searching the harvested metadata was created and deployed at this point. The third phase of work involved creating and running a Web survey and intensive in-house end-user interviews to test the successes and limitations of the current search interface. The fourth phase of work involved a second round of end-user interviews, search log analysis, research into relevancy of results., and the development of a revised search interface. OAIster can be found online at http://www.oaister.org/, with more than a million records available from over 120 sources. OAIster staff members have incorporated their software work on the interface into the DLXS distribution process, so that part of OAIster is now available through Open Source licensing and has been installed at some of the nearly thirty DLXS sites around the world. Further dissemination of UM’s software work (especially XSLT-based transformation routines) will be made available during the coming year.

The CIC metadata portal: A collaborative effort in the area of digital libraries

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 22:58:59 GMT

Title: The CIC metadata portal: A collaborative effort in the area of digital libraries

Authors: Foulonneau, Muriel; Cole, Timothy W.; Blair, Charles; Gorman, Peter C.; Hagedorn, Kat; Riley, Jenn

Abstract: The CIC consortium includes 12 major Midwestern Universities. Their libraries have decided to share the cost of a joint project (2003-2006) aimed at better understanding the mechanisms by which emerging technologies and standards can facilitate metadata sharing and the creation of value-added services for their users. The CIC metadata portal project has performed advanced work in the area of Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting, collection level descriptions, metadata transformation and enrichment, and practices and usability of metadata standards. It has provided an opportunity for increased collaboration between CIC academic libraries and a way to highlight the wealth of digital resources held by the participating libraries. This article describes the project and enumerates project accomplishments. The project has helped to better the way in which partner institutions share information about digital content and provide access to digital resources. Four content providers of the project highlight different aspects of the project and the practical benefits they found in the collaboration.

Description: Article copies available from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH | docdelivery@haworthpress.com | http://www.HaworthPress.com/

OAIster: a "no dead ends" OAI service provider

Tue, 29 Oct 2002 22:58:59 GMT

Title: OAIster: a "no dead ends" OAI service provider

Authors: Hagedorn, Kat

Abstract: OAIster, at the University of Michigan, University Libraries, Digital Library Production Service (DLPS), is an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant-funded project designed to test the feasibility of using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) to harvest digital object metadata from multiple and varied digital object repositories and develop a service to allow end-users to access that metadata. This article describes in-depth the development of our system to harvest, store, and transform the metadata into Digital Library eXtension Service (DLXS) Bibliographic Class format, build indexes and make the metadata searchable through an interface using the XPAT search engine. Results of the testing of our service and statistics on usage are reported, as well as the issues that we have encountered during our harvesting and transformation operations. The article closes by discussing the future improvements and potential of OAIster and the OAI-PMH protocol.